Advent Sunday

Operation successful, recovery well on the way, and I should be home tomorrow. Blessed Advent everyone!

The following was written by Craig Uffman and taken from a blog named "Covenant".

An important teacher of mine taught that the Church "must provide skills to transform fate into destiny so that the unexpected, especially as it comes in the form of the visitor, can be welcomed as gift." There’s something quite profound here. The movement from fate to destiny is a "transforming of the mind" such that we no longer see life as given, but as gift. As Christians, we claim that human existence does not lie in the hands of fate. When the Christian story is told, when it is performed in the practices of our community, when the character of our common life reflects that we have learned to receive all of life as gift, then our existence is seen to be in the hands of divine destiny. And it is that destiny that we anticipate this Advent season.

So, in these tough times, we are not powerless. Our power is in our freedom, our ability to choose how we respond. If we have the faithfulness to shower our neighbor with love in these times, if we have the courage to focus on the timeless while rocked by the tempest, we can expect to experience the joy of a life fulfilled, the joy of being united with God. It’s not that we earn this joy and this peace of fulfillment, but rather that we claim and participate in the gift already given. When that happens, we are "more than conquerors of life." Nothing can take that joy from us. An ancient tentmaker said it best. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall separate us" from this joy, this fruit of a life in union with a love that knows no bounds.